


Flames Ignite

by archeron_queens



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Clueless Cassian, Clueless Nesta, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 23:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14580252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archeron_queens/pseuds/archeron_queens
Summary: A story about Nesta's growth and evolution after the War. Eventually, about her relationship with Cassian but mostly about her dynamic with whole inner circle. Set after ACOWAR but not conpliant with ACOFAS. Honestly, I didn't particularly like it and like my "reality" a little more. Nesta is in love with Cassian but is in denial, Cassian isn't even pretending not to love her though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the first thing I write but it’s the first time I’m brave enough to put it up (mostly because I wrote this in the span of one hour and a half and put it here before I had time to overthink it!) Some feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Nesta sat at the bay window lining the back wall of the town house, like she had been doing for days, week, months on end. She couldn’t tell what day it was, what day it had been when that stupid prick of an oversized bat had had the audacity to do that love declaration. «I have no regrets in my life, but this. That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta.» Well, prick, why aren’t you using the time we did get? Nesta thought, keeping a low snarl from escaping her throat. Feyre and Elain already looked at her with enough pity, she didn’t need them doting on her anymore. But how could she stay mad at them? It wasn’t them that told their father they hated him, that he was useless and worthless. It wasn’t them that were too late to save his life, it wasn’t them that were to late to tell him they were sorry, too. It wasn’t them that had spent a big part of their lives being worthless pieces of shit. They couldn’t understand. Regardless of what had been done to them, and Mother above, had that been horrid, Nesta wasn’t plagued by the atrocious that had been done to her, she was plagued by what she had done.

“Good morning,” Feyre chirps has she nearly floats into the living room, wearing what had to be Rhysand’s shirt, and nothing else. Nesta didn’t even look up, she was scared she would regret anything that came out of her mouth. Her sister didn’t seem fazed by her blatant disregard. “We are going to have dinner at the House, tonight, I was wondering if you would like to come.”

Nesta said the only thing she could without sounding like a bitch. “I have nothing to wear.”

“Then come shopping with me, today. Get out of the house, it’ll do you good,” Feyre said quietly. It it weren’t for Nesta’s Fae earring, she might have not heard her at all. All these years, she hadn’t minded that Feyre hated her, so long as she took care of Elain, but she couldn’t bare her sister being scared of her.

“I don’t know if anyone informed you, but it isn’t if Elain or I got to bring any money, we used some dresses your blasted mate found for us, but we don’t have money to buy any others.”

“Of course you do,” Rhysand yelled from the kitchen. Nesta just arched an eyebrow at him, trying her best to keep her face emotionless, to keep from yelling at them, or crying, or everything she just wanted to let out for once. “You are our Emissary to the Human Lands, you obviously get paid accordingly to that position,” he said to her, bringing a cup of tea to the window for her. It was the first time he offered her anything, usually just letting Feyre or Elain doing it. It was also the first time she took anything they offered.

“I haven’t done anything,” she replied, voice steady, not letting his declaration sink in.

“You dragged yourself to Thesan’s palace and told them the worst thing that has ever happened to you, you helped with the meeting after the battle, you made sure Elain was okay all these years. You’ve done plenty, Nesta,” Feyre said, sitting down next to her, still in only with that blasted shirt on. Nesta refused to face her, staring Elain’s garden, unmoving. Her sister gave their conversation up after a long moment of silence and went to sit with her mate for breakfast. Nesta drank her tea and left without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

Feyre, it seemed, had had enough of leaving her alone. Not even two hours after breakfast, she was knocking at Nesta’s door, insisting they went shopping together.

“Nesta, let’s go downtown, please!” The High Lady said after Nesta had opened the door, having grown tired of her barbaric yelling.

“Why are you so adamant I go? Take Elain, instead, or blondie,” Nesta answered.

“Blondie?” Feyre asked incredulously.

“Morrigan. You know, the one who systematically wants to steal my dresses. You must know her Feyre, she’s planning your wedding after all.” Feyre looked at her with raised brows.

“They have enough dresses already, you don’t,” Feyre said, choosing to ignore the animosity between her sister and the other female.

“I have no need for dresses, I don’t plan to go anywhere that would require one in the near future,” Nesta said after a long silent minute.

“Oh. I thought you didn’t want to wear just anything tonight.”

"As I said, I don’t plan to go anywhere that calls for a dress. Go have your little dinner, I don’t care.” Feyre looked taken aback by the aggressiveness. Nesta hadn’t been pleasant, but she had kept a quiet, chilly tone, this explosion had been a small slip of Nesta’s tightly held rage. Then, she just looked sad.

“Don’t do this, Nesta,” her sister said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t block everyone out again, please.”

"I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but I’m not blocking absolutely anything, I just do not wish to spend my evenings with a handful of loudmouth busybodies.” 

“Why not? Why don’t you want the dresses, the food, our care? Why do you think it’s better to spend all your time cooped up here?”

"Because I can’t hurt anybody when I’m alone up here! Because if not for me Mother would still be alive, and you would never have to leave for the woods every dawn and that monster would have never taken you, and Elain would still be alive AND FATHER WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!” Nesta stopped, breathing heavily, her hands, previously closed in tight fists were now in front of her, fingers splayed.

“Is that what you really think? That all this is your fault? I’ll tell you, then, how our lives would have been if Mother hadn’t died. By now, we would all be married, with equally sadistic, sycophant husbands, who would have us in tight corsets and tighter chains. All we would be doing was planning disgustingly perfect parties for our husbands’ perfect friends, always having to appear perfect. Father would have sold us to the highest bidder like prized mares, in fact, we would have a kid each, in the bare minimum. Not to mention that there had still been a war above the wall, the wall would probably still have come down. We would all have been dead! I know you don’t like how this came out, I know you suffered and still suffer every day, but you can’t spend days on end making up alternate endings for this story. And you sure as hell can’t blame yourself for Mother’s death.”

"Get out,” Nesta said after a while of them staring each other down. Her breathing was again controlled and steady, her hands closed tightly into fists, enclosing all that rage that threatened to spill over.

“No,” her sister responded, possibly defying her for the first time since that blasted cauldron.

“You don’t get to come into my room and start spewing all that bullshit, get out, Feyre.”

"No. Firstly, this is my house so I can do as I please. And secondly, it isn’t bullshit, it’s the truth and therefore, I have the right to say it.” Nesta looked away from her sister and to Elain’s little rose garden. Her brain couldn’t seem to decide what to do, as strange as that seems. She wanted to go with her sister. She wanted to share with her the things they should have shared all those years back, she wanted to be sisters again. And she wanted to believe her too, but when you spend so long telling yourself you are worthless, you start to believe it. Nesta took one last look at her sister and promptly turned around, walking into her washroom, the door closing behind her with a loud thumping sound.


	3. Chapter 3

Nesta slid down the door she had just closed. Mother, why couldn’t she just be like her sisters? Not scared of getting hurt, and not scared of hurt others.

“Nesta, I’m tired of this. I don’t care if you hate me, I’m sitting on your bed and I will be sitting here until you get your ass out of that washroom and talk to me!” Feyre yelled through the door. Nesta sighed, why didn’t she understand? Why don’t I understand? Why don’t I understand my own head? Nesta thought suddenly. As if that thought had flicked a switch, she was able to understand something, she was hurting her sister. She had been hurting those she loved all her life not because she was close to them, but because she never actually let them in. This had all happened because she had never been a sister to Feyre and Elain, she had just been someone taking advantage of their very little money.

“I’m sorry,” Nesta whispered after a little moment. Her voice infinitely tiny, but she knew Feyre had heard it. Her cheeks remained surprisingly dry, despite the break down that was happening inside her head. She felt her sister slid down the other side of the door. Damn these Fae senses, Nesta could feel everything.

“There’s nothing you should be sorry for, Nesta,” Feyre said, voice just as small as Nesta’s.

“You were just a little girl, Feyre, just a child, when you took yourself into the woods to keep us from starving! I have everything to be sorry for!”

“No! Nesta, no. For Mother’s sake, Nesta, I’m over it. Yes, it happened, but we were all young and we were all grieving and angry. It happened, and it’s absolutely of no consequence. You gave up your safety, your whole life, for me and because I asked you to. I caused everything you ever knew to crumble around you. Please never feel sorry for it, Nesta. And never keep me out like this,” Feyre said, taking a deep breath. “I can see you wasting away up in this room every day and I see myself letting you do that, not doing anything to stop it. And I know that enough is enough. I’ve been there, Nesta, I know it hurts.”

“Does the offer of dresses still hold?”

“Of course,” Feyre murmurs, Nesta could hear the smile in those two words.

. . .

Dress shopping with Feyre was actually a nightmare. There was nothing that particularly excited Nesta, but her sister thrust dress after dress into her arms and forced her to try them on.

“When would I even wear that, Feyre?”

“I don’t care, I’m High Lady, I’m telling you to try on, so do it!”

“I’m tired of trying stuff on, I already got eleven new things, how many do I need?”

“Please? Just this one?” It was a deep blue contraption, knots and straps and sheer fabric everywhere. It would have been her style, with the long sleeves and high neckline, if not for the hugely open back and barely-there bodice, the slits up both her legs.

“Seriously, how would I wear that?”

“Tonight,” Feyre said very simply.

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. If Cassian looked like a gaping fish with your dress for the High Lords’ meeting, what will he say about this?” Feyre said wiggling her brows, the traitor.

“We’ve been over this. Twice. Today. There’s nothing between us. And I want it to stay like that,” Nesta said, tearing the dress from her sister’s hands and stalking into the changing room.

“Rhys thinks it’s a mating bond,” Nesta thanked the Cauldron for the shut curtain between them, because at those words, her whole world had frozen and crashed down around her. No, it couldn’t be, Cassian couldn’t… He just couldn’t.

“Tell your nosy excuse of a mate to mind his own business,” Nesta said in a chilly voice, struggling to get around all the straps of the dress, and her own thoughts of the Illyrian male.


	4. Chapter 4

Nesta ended up not getting the half naked dress her sister had wanted her in. Even if she wanted people drooling in her presence, she knew all she need was a nice, simple dress and her own Fae features. Not that she was that fond of them, but it seemed that her new face had an even stronger effect than her old one.

She spent most of the afternoon in her room, but instead of reading like usually, she stared blankly at her newly purchased dresses. Particularly, at the red one Feyre forced her to buy. Red, the exact same shade of red as his siphons. It was exactly her style, long, hugging her every curve, a high neckline and made of a heavy, rich fabric that she knew would flatter her curves. But the color. She couldn’t wear it, especially not to a dress he was undoubtedly attending. Then why did her heart want to put it on so bad? Why did she feel so attracted to a dress? It was just a dress after all, not a magical item or something of the like.

Rhys thinks it’s a mating bond, Feyre had said. But how? How could that be truth? What was, even a mating bond, she didn’t feel anything at all…

“May I come in,” Elain’s voice carried from the hall, with three soft knocks on the door.

“Of course,” Nesta said after painstakingly removing her eyes from the scarlet gown.

“That’s a very red dress,” her sister said from the doorway. Nesta stared blankly at her sister. At the beautiful delicate flower that they had all recently found out actually had very sharp thorns hidden behind the pretty petals.

“I’m aware, Feyre forced me to buy it. She better pay for it, because I’m not wearing it any time soon,” her brain saying what her heart could not.

“Of course you are. You are wearing it tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you tonight, in that dress,” Elain said, seemingly not understanding Nesta’s doubts

“Doesn’t it remind you of anything? Of anyone?” Nesta asked her sister, beckoning her to close the door behind her.

“Should it?”

“I’ll give you a hint, it’s hulking over-grown brutish bat.”

“Nesta, one of these days, you’re going to have to stop denying your own heart,” Elain said softly, like she was talking to an injured kitten.

“Is that a vision?”

“No. I don’t need any special powers to see what is between the two of you. Lucien and I may be bonded, but you and Cassian… It’s not even comparable. You belong with each other,” Elain said. Like usually, reaching painfully deep into her soul. Maybe Elain had always been a Seer, she had always seen more than anyone else, the Cauldron had just intensified it.

“Stop it. Stop saying those things,” Nesta said looking away.

“You want me to stop it because you know it’s the truth. He knows it, too. It’s not a one-sided thing, don’t worry.”

“Then why has he been pretending I don’t exist lately?”

“Because he knows you weren’t alright, after the war, and he doesn’t want to pressure you,” Elain said. How did she know these things?

“Did you talk to him?”

“I don’t need to, Nesta. All our friends could have told everything I just told you, it’s written all over both your faces. You are both too blind to see it,” Elain said with a small smile. This Elain, Nesta thought, this happy, free Elain was the best thing Nesta had ever seen in her life.

“You mean I should wear the dress?”

“You should wear whatever the hell you want, but if your heart is telling you to wear it, maybe you should. And, besides,” Elain said idly opening the door and peering back, “I would pay good money to see Cassian’s face when he sees you in that.”


	5. Chapter 5

FLAMES IGNITE | CHAPTER V  
Nesta Fanfiction | chapter V

 

Masterlist

Chapter I // Chapter II // Chapter III // Chapter IV // Chapter V // Chapter VI // Chapter VII // Chapter VIII

My spring break has finally arrived of have a 500 word discursion about pretty dresses and Nesta pining over Cassian! Tomorrow I’ll have his reaction to her at dinner ready for you!

Tagging: @highladyjel @aelinashgalathynius @my-fan-side (If you want to be tagged, just tell me!)

As usually, Nesta got ready by herself. One thing she had never stopped doing is braiding up her hair, even in their worst times, and she had mastered most hairstyles she had been able to think of. No piece of jewelry to be seen. The blood-red velvet hung to her curves from her bodice down to her hips, from where it cascaded to the floor elegantly. She turned around. Her back was entirely naked, the only thing that offered any sort of coverage at all was a fine silver chain that ran from on side of her neck to the other and gathered in the middle of her back, falling down in a waterfall of little ruby droplets. Nesta wasn’t sure if she looked like an expensive prostitute or a queen, probably both. Either way, she had had enough of their games, she was ready to get the General on his knees.

Feyre, Elain and Lucien were already in the sitting room when Nesta descended the stair of the townhouse. Elain and Lucien both had their backs turned to the staircase but when Feyre gaped at her, they wiped around with similar expressions. Good, it was starting well, Nesta thought.

“Is he always late?” Nesta asked nonchalantly?

“Turn around,” was Feyre’s only response. She did and looked back in time to see her sister’s Cheshire cat’s grin, likely imagining a certain someone’s reaction to the piece. Oh, Nesta had missed this while she had been buried up in her room. It had been a necessity, but she had missed this.

“Twenty gold marks says he drops his glass,” Rhysand drawled from the top of the stairs.

“Fifty marks on him gaping like a fish,” Feyre said, looping her arm through her mate’s when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Do you always bet? On everything?” Nesta asked exasperatedly.

“Yes,” Elain said, surprisingly excited. “And I say a hundred on actually needing to sit down. Or go do some unspeakable thing.” Nesta was the one gaping at her sister and her… vocabulary.

“Stop it, it’s just a dress. If I wanted him passed out I wouldn’t be wearing one, would I?” Nesta said finally. Lucien turned redder than his hair, Rhys smirked like he was mad and her sisters shared looks of equal surprise and wickedness. Since when was Nesta the most modest one in the family?

Rhysand and Feyre flew them all up to the House, but her little sister stayed behind on the balcony with her while the High Lord, Elain and Lucien went ahead to dinner.

“I’m really happy you came,” Feyre said.

“I am too.”

“I’m also glad you are at least acknowledging Cass,” she said, much more carefully.

“Elain talked to me, in the afternoon, she said our feelings are written all over our faces. Is it true?” Nesta asked finally looking her sister in the eyes.

“Of course it is. It has been for way longer than you realize,” they stared at each other for a little bit, enjoying their newly found relationship. “Let’s go kill a little bat?” Feyre said a wiggle of her eyebrows. Nesta just gave her a devious smirk.

Nesta couldn’t help but take a steadying breath before walking into the room.


	6. Chapter 6

*CASSIAN POV *

Cassian knew the second Rhys dropped her off on the balcony. It was like something inside him knew she was close by. He forced himself not to look for her, not to look like a young Illyrian who couldn’t keep himself in check. But the second he heard her steps echoing through the open doors his head wiped around to look at her before he realized what he was doing. She was strolling absent-mindedly through the room, but Cassian knew better than to think she wasn’t paying attention to every single of their movements. Their eyes locked and Cassian tried his best to look away from those blue-gray eyes that seemed to hypnotize him more and more the longer he looked at them.

Only when she sat near Amren at a settee and looked away from him did he let himself look at her body. And dear Mother, she would be the death of him. Her dress let her whole back exposed and the fine chain down it made it obvious it was of Illyrian made. And the red… The red was the exact same shade as his siphons. His blood was roiling and he could feel it rushing in his ears. He completely lost awareness of his surroundings until he felt a cold liquid spread all over his front and look down to see his wine glass completely shattered in his white-knuckled hand.

“I did say only Azriel had good manners,” Feyre chirped with a laugh from her place by the window with Mor, who was looking sharply at him. Oh Cauldron, this was why he didn’t want to tell her about Nesta. He knew this was what the reaction would be.

“Brother, I don’t know if we should indulge Feyre darling or actually give you change of shirts,” Rhys drawled from next to him on the oak table. Az, the prick could barely stand straight while laughing so much.

Cassian looked at Nesta amidst all the craziness and he found her smirking at him. Those eyes he spent nights thinking about were unnaturally warm, an amused looked playing high on them. He would give up everything in his life to experience that look again. She had him by the balls. She could ask him anything, he would do it without a moment’s thought.

“Shut up. Rhys, get the food, I’m going to raid the cellar and change shirts,” he said the last part with narrowed eyes at his High Lady. 

Nesta got up and he held his breathing for a second. “Why does anyone trust you with choosing wine? Regardless of how much it costs, it’s always horrible when you go choose it,” he couldn’t help but notice the lack of heat in her voice. The light teasing. He wanted to bask in it.

“Then come with me, sweetheart, I had no idea you were such an expert,” he noticed Mor opening her mouth and he wasted no time in turning his back on her and offering the eldest Archeron his arm. Surprisingly, she took it, with a minimum of kneeing him in the balls.

“Long time no see, Nesta Archeron,” he smiled at her when they were alone in the hall. The precise smile he knew would make her murderous. Then he remembered that why they hadn’t seen each other, why she hadn’t left the Town House and all humor left his face. “How have you been doing?”

“Am I supposed to be alright? So soon?” She said with surprising softness. He wondered what had happened to her that she could just say that like that, no barbed wire around it.

“Of course not,” he matched her softness with his voice, desperate not to break this moment. “I only want you to keep healing, Nesta. All I need to know is that you are better than you were two months ago, even if it’s a tiny tiny tiny amount. You have time, we all do.”

“Why? Why are you bothering with me?” He stared at her. This female, so much like the female he had once met but so far from that human Nesta, always found a way to baffle him.

“Because you bothered with me, too. You were going to die for me.”


	7. Chapter 7

**NESTA POV**

Nesta sat at what had become her armchair in the last pair of months. Her youngest sister had left early that morning, but Nesta had already heard her leave. Heard him as he came to pick her up for their training. Heard his voice in her head from when he had offered to train her. She heard him in most things these days. Maybe it was a mating bond, Nesta thought, maybe it was supposed to feel like this. Like there was something in her unrelentingly looking for him. It also seemed like the second her thoughts strayed to him, he appeared in front of her. It was infuriating.

“Hello, Nesta,” he drawled from the doorway. It was the first time he came into the townhouse since the war, or at least that she saw him there. Nesta wanted to get up throw her book to the floor and run into his arms. Instead, she looked up for long enough he knew she had seen him and sharply turned back to her book. Yes, she was attracted to him, but she also knew what happened when people got too close to her. What had always happened to anyone who she let in. It had never ended well.

“Are you back to ignoring me? That’s okay, I brought my own book, I’ll keep myself entertained while you do it,” he took out a ratty old book, its spine having been opened and closed way too many times. Her heart surged at the realization that he had proposedly flown to her to read beside her. Hating him was starting to become difficult.

“Oh, you weren’t joking back then? You can really read?” She asked him, looking up at him with the look she knew could make any lesser male run with his tail between his legs.

“Why are you so keen on me not knowing how to read? Feel like teaching me?”

“I didn’t think you would grasp it,” she said, not even bothering to look up from her book.

“You always treat me so well, Ness. How can you manage such kindness all the time?”

“By having you piss me off every day.”

“I haven’t pissed you off for at least three months,” he said more to himself than anything. She couldn’t look him in the eyes after he said that. She was mad again, she wanted to hate him again.

—-

**CASSIAN POV**

“You have no right to say that,” she said through clenched teeth looking.

“To say what? To say that you locked me the fuck out right after you almost died for me? To say I wanted to come here every single day since the war but your sisters keep telling me to stay away? To say you never bothered to look for me? Why did I have to come to you? You have two working legs, why didn’t you ask anyone for me?” She didn’t look at him through the entirety of his very heated speech. She had visibly blanched by the end of it. Very slowly, Nesta got up and put her book down, looking him in the eyes with a very straight back.

“You have no idea what it was like for me,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I have no idea? I had to deal with my mate being mentally wounded and absolutely hating my guts for three months. I think I know, Nesta.” And there it was. The truth they had both been ignoring since that kiss in the war, since the bond had snapped into place. Since he had been sure he would die, but would die alone, in his mate’s arms. The truth he had forced himself to ignore for the last three months because he knew she had to be the one to take the initiative.

“What did you just say?” She said, her voice a tiny thing, fire in her beautiful eyes. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t even breath under that stare. “What did you say, Cassian?”

“I said mate. You are my mate, Nesta,” he said after a long deep breath. She looked like he had punched her in the gut. “It doesn’t mean anything. If you don’t want it, then it means nothing. We don’t have to act on it, please Nesta, please don’t keep me out again.”

“Get out.”

“I’m sorry, Ness,” he said, his voice already laced with the tears threatening him.

“Get out,” she repeated with cold rage. He did.

——-

**Nesta POV**

She felt as though her brain had stopped functioning. She couldn’t get past the word. Mate. How could it be? Mates were supposed to be equal in every way, she had read it in plenty of books, but he was one of the most powerful Illyrians ever, she was just a Made human. She was no one next to him. So, she had reacted the only way she had been capable of at that moment. She put as much distance between him and herself as she could. She regretted talking to him like that already. Like she imagined many Illyrian lordlings had talked to him throughout the centuries.

Nesta wished she knew where he was. If he was mad at her, that would be alright, but knowing she had hurt him was killing her. This was what she had always been afraid of. She was like a hurricane, everything she touched was left in ruins. Why had she let herself believe it would be different with Cassian?

Nesta quickly found she could not deal with the possibility of him hating her. Where could he have gone to? Her sister might have known, but Nesta didn’t feel like discussing the details of her relationships with Feyre. Azriel, she decided, was likely her best option, but how could she find the spymaster?

Nesta realized, amidst her convulsing thoughts, that she couldn’t recognize herself. The whole predicament seemed very out of the ordinary for her. Nesta didn’t care if she hurt other, much less Cassian. And she definitely didn’t go around interrogating people to find him. However, it all seemed acceptable. Very much normal, actually. Despite herself, longing for Cassian like this seemed like the only thing she could do at that moment. So she did, regardless of how childish it was (she had been the one to throw him out after all) she set out for the hunt. She dressed in a hurry, peeling off the old sweater and trousers she had found in Elain’s closet in the morning.

It seemed like Amren’s lessons ended coming in handy, for she winnowed to the Velaris rainbow despite having never done so before. Maybe they would still make an acceptable High Fae out of her after all. Where does one find a spymaster? She thought. Most days, gardening with Elain in the backyard, but unfortunately not today.

“Do you need anything, Emissary?” A dark voice drawled from behind her. Figures that the High Lord of the Night Court had nothing else to do but follow her around.

“Your brother, bastard, foster sibling, whatever you call him,” she answered calmly. Nesta had no qualms, she knew that he was aware of everything that had just happened, there was no point pretending.

“As you may recall, I have to put up with two of those,” he said with a smug smile watching the Sidra. She was going to smack that smirk off his disgustingly pretty face.

“I reckon they are the ones to put up with one such thing,” she replied.

“I have to admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of you, but you have grown on me. In the Illyrian mountains, there is a little cabin, just for family. It is… It is a place where we have been known to escape to when all else fails. You can hunt, you can sleep and it’s one of our most secure locations. I would definitely say he could be there,” Rhysand said.

“Would you- Would you be willing to take me there?”

“Would you be willing to fly there?"Nesta was willing, yet she knew what it would mean if she said yes. It would mean Cassian was more important in her eyes than her fear of flying. It would mean she cared. And for Nesta, that was a lot. However, this was her High Lord, and she was one of his dearest friends’ mate. She kind of had to prove she was committed.

"Why are we still loitering around?” Nesta said, halting the slow stroll they had been taking on the Rainbow.

“Let’s go,” he drawled, picking her up and taking to the skies


	8. Chapter 8

“Go on, knock,” Rhysand said from behind her as she hesitated in front of the door to the little cabin. “He’s in there, Nesta.”

“Go away, then. I can take care of this part,” Nesta snapped back at him.

“Ah, damn it, then! I wanted to see his face when he sees you.”

“Thank you for bringing me, Rhysand, now go away.” He muttered something under his breath, but the second he took to the skies, Nesta tuned everything out. Everything but the overwhelming need to open the door and run to Cassian. She reminded herself again to keep her anger in check, all the might she had shown Hybern. Cassian had never been anything but kind and gentle to her, why did she insist on hurting him every other day?

After a stilling breath, she looked behind her, making sure Rhys was gone, and finally knocked. She wasn’t proud of how long it took, and even less proud of how scared she was to see him. After the way she had talked to him, he had all reason to hate her.

“Just go away, Mo- You aren’t Mor,” he said opening the door with an angry swing and then with heartbreaking gentleness. She didn’t deserve him, she never would.

They stared at each other for a long time in complete silence. Cassian in the doorway, Nesta still outside, little flecks of new snow gathering in her hair and dress. “I wanted to apologize. For the way I spoke to you earlier, I was in no position to treat you like that,” Nesta said. Cassian looked more astonished than he had when she had kneed him in the balls. 

“I thought you knew, I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that,” he said, and then after a pause: “I just got here and discovered your sister and her mate have desacrated this place. If you want to talk we could head to my house.”

“I’ve already flown here and I’ve already apologised, don’t you think you’re pushing your luck?” Nesta said trying to tease him, but unfortunately her voice came out icy cold. What in the Mother’s name? 

“It’s alright, come inside, it was a joke,” Cassian uttered in a flustered voice.

“I was joking. Though I’m sure you’re incapable of keeping a house inhabitable,” She said as he closed the door behing him. 

“Then I’ll be happy to prove you wrong,” he said. “He must have really arrived right before her, because he was still wearing full Illyrian winter leathers. He offered her a arm and she told herself that they’d touched like this already, her dislike for too much contact coming up at the worst moment possible. He suddenly gave her chin the lightest of tugs upwards to meet his stare. They were mere breaths away from each other now. "I know you’re uncomfortable, Nesta. Let’s just say here, it was really a joke.”

“Rhysand just flew me here, I’m more than alright.”

“You know better than I do that that’s not how it works,” he said, his gentle voice so at odds with his usual domineering attitude.

“Can you get us to your house or not?" 

"Any point of this that you’re unconfortable, Nesta, and you tell me. I’ll claim I’m tired and call one of them to take us to Velaris,” he said picking her up into his arms.

“Thank you,” she breathed lightly into his neck. She could feel him restraining his shudder as his powerful wings took them into the endless skies. 

“I did know. Or I suspected, at least. Feyre had already told me what Rhys thought.” She whispered above the wind after some minutes of flying.

“Rhys had some thoughts about- us? That bastard…”

She nodded slightly again. “Yes. She told me he had his suspicions about a mating bond,” she said, her tone kept very gentle, matching his. It seemed both of them were walking on eggshells, seeing which one would snap first. 

“I see.” He stared right ahead and she got his message well enough. Talk only after landing.

——

His house was… everything she wouldn’t have said it would be. It was light, clean and airy enough that it gave you that free, peaceful feeling only rare spaces could. And it was, very literally, overflowing with books. She didn’t ask him for permission before she started going through his collection. He had never asked for permission for most little things like these.

The entirety of the lower level was an open space encompassing the living and dining spaces and the kitchen, and she more, often than not, found herself watching him heat up some loafs and a stew. Since when was Nesta attracted to a male. Her body had been betraying her way too much these past weeks.

“Are we actually going to talk about it or just going to keep on with the small talk? Because either one is fine, I’d simply like to have a heads up,” he said sitting down on the couch besides the book shelves. It was her choice, Nesta realized. It had always been her choice with Cassian, he had always been considerate with her, always giving her the control she demanded.

She took a breath to ready herself. Making this decision - it would change their whole relationship. She sat down next to him. “We are going to talk about it.”

“Okay,” there was a long moment where he seemed to be browsing for the right words. “I don’t know where to start." 

"We have a long time. Start from the beggining.” Cassian did. And when he finished his story, right about the time they met, she started hers. It was shorter, but he was looking at her with the most pained expression he had ever used. Rhysand may resent her for what she forced Feyre to do, but Nesta had been as broken by her mother’s death as Feyre had been after Under The Mountain. And people, Cassian learnt a long time ago, all reacted differently to different traumas. Their mother’s death had barely affected Feyre, but Nesta saw all she had ever known crumble around her in the span of days. The way she treated a 14-year-old would always be bad, but Nesta regretted it so deeply and she had such reasons for it that he couldn’t hold it against her. She had just been a broken child, same as Elain, why one was praised and the other one shunned he had never understood. 

They stayed like that for a long time, eventually moving on to a more comfortable position than sitting up right. His wings lounged on the back of the couch while she was propped against its arm, her feet in his lap in a rare moment of openness. 

They talked about everything and anything, what they had been doing, recontruction after the war, books… After a while, she got up and roamed around the space. “I didn’t react like that because its a bad thing, the bond. It was shock. I don’t think you are all that bad,” she said, never once meeting his eyes and even going as far as turning her back to him at the end. Oh Nesta…

“I wouldn’t mind if you thought it was disgusting. I was disgusting. If that was your will,” he said, joining her at the window where she was admiring the milk sunset. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t being particularly truthfull either. He wold have had to find a way to come back from Nesta hating him if that was the case.

"But I’m glad it isn’t.“ He said into the sun setting on the mountains. It occured to him that she may stay there overnight. At his house. The house which only had one room- his. Oh Mother help me, he thought.


End file.
